Opening search queries in new background tab

Sorry if this is a basic question everybody. New user and searched first with no luck (maybe I'm bad at it?). When I type in a new URL or a search query in the menu bar or search box, it will only open it up in the current, active window. On Safari I could do a Command/Return to open in a new (background) tab. That doesn't seem to be working with Vivaldi. I've searched for solutions and this seems like it should be an easy one. Am I just missing how to enable this functionality? Any help? Thanks!

In Vivaldi, you have to hit Alt-Return instead of Cmd-Return to open a search result in a new tab. That new tab is not a background tab, but I find that actually advantageous. The keyboard shortcut and the behavior is, by the way, identical to how Firefox works.

Alternatively, you could use Quick Commands (invoked via Cmd-E) to do searches. If you turn on "Open Pages in New Tab" at Vivaldi Preferences->Quick Commands, you don't even need to press the Alt key in addition to Return. The Quick Commands function is also pretty cool for opening bookmarks or switching to a tab, if you have a lot of open tabs.

When reporting issues, please always include which Vivaldi version and which version of your operating system you are using.

Cmd-E should also work for searching with your default search engine. Just start typing something and it should say "Search 'abc' on [your default search engine]". Or did I misunderstand your first sentence?

Someone correct me if I am wrong but I'm not aware of a way to open search results in a background tab currently. I'm curious, though, why you would prefer that? I open a ton of tabs in the background but those are always links from a search results page or any other page with multiple links. I cannot imagine a situation where I would want to do a web search but then not see the results immediately and instead hide them in a background tab.

When reporting issues, please always include which Vivaldi version and which version of your operating system you are using.

Maybe a background tab is the wrong phrasing – you're right, it doesn't make sense.

What I'm trying to ask is when I type into the Google search bar in the upper right it will only display the results in the current window. In Safari, I could hit Command-Return and get the results in a new tab, keeping my original window open how i like it. I have to open up a new tab and then type in a search query. Yeah, it's not the hardest thing in the world but I'm so used to it working the other way in other browsers that I miss that function.

I've tried using Command-E and it only searches my bookmarks ... I'll hunt through preferences to see if I have some wrong option clicked.

I just realized that for some weird reason, you don't get the "Search 'abc' on [your default search engine]" in Quick Commands (i.e., after pressing Cmd-E or F2) if Google is set as your default search engine. With all other search engines set as default, you can just start typing and are then offered to search for what you have typed. Very strange. I have DuckDuckGo set as my default search engine, which is why I never noticed this bug before.

If you invoke Quick Command, you can however type "g abc" and then it offers you to search Google for abc. If you generally prefer the search results to open in a new tab, you can turn on "Open Pages in New Tab" at Vivaldi Preferences->Quick Commands, as I have already written earlier in this thread and as TbGbe has reiterated.

Alternatively, if you prefer to use the search bar, you can actually use Alt-Return to open the search results in a new page, but this does not work yet in the 1.2.490.43 stable release. If you do get the current snapshot release from the following URL, it will work, though: https://vivaldi.net/en-US/content/vivaldi-updates

There is actually even a third option, I just realized: If you turn off the additional search field via "Vivaldi Preferences->Search->Search Field in Address Bar->Enable", you can start typing in the regular address bar and when you then hit Alt-Return, the results are opened in a new tab even if you stick with the 1.2.490.43 stable version that you are likely using.

So in summary, if I understand correctly, you can the desired behavior either by:

using Cmd-E with "g search terms" (and the "Open in new tab" setting turned on)

upgrading to a snapshot release of Vivaldi and then doing Alt-Return in the dedicated search field

turning off the dedicated search field and then doing Alt-Return in the address bar

So many options.

When reporting issues, please always include which Vivaldi version and which version of your operating system you are using.